The Batman Is Using Mandalorian Technology for Select Scenes | Collider

The technology that made The Mandalorian possible is now also being used on one of the biggest upcoming films, The Batman. Lucasfilm had been trying to get a live-action Star Wars TV show off the ground for years, but the biggest hindrance was how to not only make such a VFX-heavy series on a TV budget, but also how to produce and release a season in a normal television timeframe. Advances in technology finally made it possible thanks to the ingenuity of Industrial Light & Magic, Jon Favreau, and cinematographer Greig Fraser, and now that technology is being put to use on the upcoming DC Comics adaptation The Batman.

Briefly, what made The Mandalorian cutting-edge was the ability to render virtual backgrounds in real-time on an LED wall using a game engine. This meant that scenes set outside on a cold planet, indoors at a tavern, or in a massive star-ship hangar could all be shot on the same soundstage with the VFX background rendered in real-time. Meaning you didn’t have to wait 9-12 months for the post-production team to create the background after the fact.

Image via Disney+

Per THR, ILM chief creative officer Rob Bredow revealed during a session at this year’s virtual VIEW visual effects and animation confab that virtual production was being used for select scenes, noting that the production design team had pre-built practical sets in the UK and an LED wall that was built around those sets to enable the use of virtual production in those specific scenes.

The connective tissue here is Fraser, the DP behind both the first season of The Mandalorian and the highly anticipated reboot The Batman. He helped develop the virtual production technology and ensure it worked in a cinematic way, and when I spoke to Fraser earlier this year during an extended interview about his career, he predicted almost every film in the future would be using this technology:

“I see a world where almost every film will use this technology in some way, shape or form. Be it from a $250 million blockbuster down to a $2 million independent movie using it for one sequence that they dry hire a studio that’s already been built and they get in there like a location. So I believe when the technology kicks on and gets widely adopted, when people understand what it can do, I believe it’ll be used quite a lot.”

The technology will also be used for Taika Waititi’s upcoming sequel Thor: Love and Thunder with an ILM StageCraft LED set being built in Australia, and it was used once again for The Mandalorian Season 2 – although Bredow revealed that the setup for Season 2 of the Disney+ series was more complex this time around, so expect some advancements.

The Batman stars Robert Pattinson in the title role and is currently in production. It’s slated to be released by Warner Bros. on March 4, 2022.

For more about this new technology, check out my extended interview with Fraser.

Image via Warner Bros.